On Sep 16, 7:30*pm, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Frank wrote:
It would be a misnomer as corn sugar is glucose.
High fructose corn syrup is something else but is functionally
identical to sucrose when put in the high acid environment of sodas.
Food police should bitch about something real.

Hmmm... Fructose and sucrose are two different types of sugar.
Sucrose causes an insulin reaction. Fructose does not cause an
insulin reaction. Fruticose is converted to fat by the liver. A high
fructose diet is a high fat diet.

Source: lookup YouTube.com for a video called "sugar: the bitter
truth" the good doctor explains how high fructose diets causes type
2 diabetes. The video is one and half hours long, but worth while
watching.
I'm a retired chemist, which is why some of this stuff bugs me.
Sucrose from sugar cane or beets is a disaccharide of glucose and
fructose. *Corn sugar is glucose and high fructose corn syrup is corn
sugar treated with an enzyme to convert half of the glucose to
*fructose. It is not a disaccharide but in the low pH soda
environment, sucrose inverts to the individual sugars, so
functionally and nutritionally high fructose corn syrup and sucrose
are the same.

Sounds plausible. *The question is though how fast? *I would expect this
fission to require heat and/or enzymes to proceed at any reasonable speed..
By the time the sugars are in your gut and being absorbed how much sucrose
has been broken down? *Unless it is a substantial proportion your argument
fails.

But even if true the argument is rather pointless.

If historically we used to get sucrose in soft drinks (which you say breaks
down to glucose and fructose) and now get it pre broken down how does that
show that complaining about HFCS in food is inappropriate? *If regular high
intakes of fructose are harmful, as some studies suggest, we should be
reducing the intake rather than saying it is no worse than what was
previously doing harm.

David- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I can't remember specifics. We used to add a few ml. of concentrated
sulfuric acid to a tank of sugar solution to invert. Not sure how
long it took, actual pH or temperature but operator would be back in
an hour or so for me to check completion of inversion. It's been
decades but I remember the night I told the operator to add too much
acid and when he came back he told me that he added far less as he
thought I was wrong. In the plant it could be an expensive mistake as
hydrogenated product would be colored and could only be used for
industrial uses instead of more valuable food use. Glucose
hydrogenates to sorbitol and fructose gives 50/50 sorbitol and
mannitol.

Should be just as rapid in the gut or in the bottle with acidic sodas.

Enzymes also do it:

http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~nsw/ench485/lab14.htm

and interesting to read that honey is mostly invert sugar due to the
bees enzymes.